Polish senate passes Holocaust bill slammed by Israel

02 February, 2018

Even though the law has not yet been codified, a recent piece of legislation in the Polish Sejm (Senate) has already caused an worldwide incident.

Despite Israeli and USA criticism, Poland's Senate approved a highly controversial law on Thursday which bans any Holocaust accusations against Poles as well as descriptions of Nazi death camps as Polish.

The Ukrainian president has called on the Polish authorities to be objective and hold a dialogue in issues related to common history.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki says that telling the truth about what happened during the Holocaust is a joint task for Poles and Jews and his country would never curb debate that occurs in pursuit of that goal.

"We encourage Poland to reevaluate the legislation in light of its potential impact on the principle of free speech and on our ability to be effective partners", State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement on Tuesday.

The Polish Foreign Ministry said the bill did not hinder freedom of speech, and would not "affect the strategic partnership between Poland and the United States".

The Senate of Poland has approved on Wednesday a controversial law that criminalizes use of term "Polish concentration camps" to refer to extermination centers, such as Auschwitz, located in territory of Central European country.

"We have the right to defend historical truth", Duda was quoted as saying when coming out in defence of the new legislation.

Under the new legislation, using the phrase "Polish death camp" or otherwise implying that Poles were complicit in Nazi crimes during WWII can result in up to three years in jail. Under Nazi occupation, the General Government, which was Berlin's official name for German-controlled Poland, was subjected to direct military rule. One-fifth of the Polish population perished during the and many Poles still refuse to accept the historical record that their fellow countrymen took part or aided in the Nazi's war crimes, including the murder of millions of Jews.

Expressing surprise at the storm the legislation has unleashed, the Polish government said it planned to issue an explanatory statement later Thursday. "What we can not, however, agree to are provisions which impose prison sentences for the use of an expression".

Only 380,000 of Poland's 3 million Jews - Europe's largest pre-war Jewish community - survived the Holocaust, according to Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial.

The Polish government has argued that a focus on such controversies could make younger Poles believe that their country was involved in the crimes.

The view that Polish citizens eagerly worked alongside the Nazis was emphatically reiterated by former #Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. Let me be clear: There was no systematic complicity in the Holocaust, not by the Polish nation or by the Polish state.

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